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a meaningless, dead church?

"[there is a] difference between knowing the gospel and being
consumed by the gospel, being defined by the gospel, being driven by the
gospel. It’s one thing to see the gospel as an important facet of one’s
ministry. It’s quite another to hold firmly to it as the centerpiece
for all a church is and does, to completely orbit around it...

... just as an individual must continually return to
the grace of Jesus for satisfaction and sanctification, a local church
must continually return to the gospel as well. Our churches must be
fully centered on Jesus and His work, or else death and emptiness is
certain, regardless of the worship style or sermon series. Without the
gospel, everything in a church is meaningless. And dead.

... So . . . if challenged to give an answer for why
we’ve lost a great deal of our power as the Church, one of the major
reasons we’d give is this: our misunderstanding about what
the gospel actually does. We seem to have developed gospel amnesia,
forgetting that the gospel not only creates and sustains the Church but
also deeply shapes the Church."